Duolingo Evolves

By Malakhi Beyah, 2025

Published 11/27/2023

Before it became the renowned, chart-topping, meme-inspiring app we know and love today, Duolingo was only an idea. German-Guatemalan entrepreneur and college professor Luis von Ahn and his Swiss student Severin Hacker, both of whom were immigrants in the United States, witnessed how much their communities struggled with learning English. The men, however, knew that English tutoring was inaccessible to most immigrants because of its high cost. As a result, von Ahn and Hacker pledged in 2011 to create a language-learning platform that was “universally available” and “the best language-learning education in the world.” Duolingo has expanded considerably since its humble beginnings: to date, it has grown from 10 million to over half a billion users, added 36 new languages, and become the world’s most popular education app for many consecutive years. Throughout all of this growth, the app has never strayed from its original purpose of providing free, quality education to the world. This month, Duolingo has decided to diversify how they provide universal education. They achieved this by introducing two new modules in addition to their foreign language lessons: Math and Music.

The new Math module covers a wide variety of fundamental math concepts. From simple addition and subtraction to telling the time and calculating area and perimeter, this module’s lessons focus on reinforcing the math skills that are necessary in everyday life. For those looking for something a little harder, the course also has Match Madness challenges mixed in with the lessons. The Match Madness challenges are time trials in which the user is tasked with correctly matching a set of mathematical expressions with their answer in under a minute and forty-five seconds. As of now, the Math module only has two sections (Beginner Math and Intermediate Math) and 30 total units, but the module is expected to expand in the future.

The novel Music module provides in-depth lessons on music theory, helping learners strengthen their ability to identify and play notes on a musical staff. Duolingo got very creative in the design of these lessons. The lessons begin by simply asking the user to identify certain notes on a musical scale and to play them on a piano at the bottom of the screen. Every time a new note is learned, the lessons shift to teaching the user a song featuring that note. In three lessons, the user learns how to tap out the song’s rhythm and play portions of the song. Finally, the user performs the entire song in a Guitar Hero-fashion, playing the notes of a song as a bar scrolls through them. The lessons ensure the user’s understanding of what is being taught by prompting them to replay parts of the song they perform incorrectly. The Music module’s lessons in rhythm, note recognition, and piano performance have the potential to greatly improve users’ musical skills.

Adding the Math and Music modules has been Duolingo’s largest update so far. The education app shows no signs of stopping anytime soon, though. As Severin Hacker stated in his annual DuoCon conference, “Our vision with Duolingo is to build one app to learn anything. Adding music and math to Duolingo is one huge step towards that vision.” Duolingo will continue to advance and expand how people all over the world think about education.